Lauren Marinigh

In May 2014, I met this incredible entrepreneur at Futurpreneur Canada’s Action Entrepreneurship Summit. He was vibrant, energetic and the passion for his business shined through. As he told me the story behind Wear Your Label, a clothing company determined to start a conversation around mental health through their clever slogans on their clothing, I could see the passion that he had for not just his business, but changing the world and how we look at mental health.

For me, I lost someone to suicide when I was only in grade 7. I will never forget that day for the rest of my life, because when you’re that young, you hardly even know what the word is, let alone believe someone was thinking of committing it. So as you can imagine, a brand like Wear Your Label resonated hard with me.

During my time at Futurpreneur, I’ve worked with Wear Your Label on several occasions. I even told their story on our blog here. I watched them flourish, and watched this tiny company from the east coast of Canada gain international attention for a cause that deserved to be talked about, instead of hidden in the shadows or looked down upon.

Since being introduced to Wear Your Label, I have had another friend of mine commit suicide within this last year. Someone who appeared to have it all together, his Facebook page showed that he was in love and happy, or so I thought. What I didn’t know was he was struggling. Today, as I stumbled back upon the Wear Your Label website, I saw that Kyle, the guy I met back in 2014, was resigning from the company. As I watched him bravely tell his story, and learned that he had recently had a suicide attempt, I was reminded how even when someone seems okay, that doesn’t mean they are.

This month is Suicide Prevention Month, and I wanted to take this time to remind everyone that it’s okay not to be okay. It’s okay to struggle, and it’s okay to talk about it. Like Kyle says in his video, “Pick up the phone and reach out to someone, it may be the heaviest object in the room to lift up and dial, just don’t suffer alone.”